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The Walter White of Wichita (2016)

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Re: The Walter White of Wichita (2016)

#41

Post by HarryHirsch »

alistairSH wrote: post #34
umvi wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is legalization better than decriminalization? If legal drugs are anything like Juuls, widespread availability and removal of social stigma will just cause use to explode and you have 10x as many addicts as you did before.

Juuls = e-cig/vape brandname

No. When you read the patents you'll realize that Jull vapes were designed mimic the psychopharmacology of cigarettes, which everyone knows are pretty damn addictive. Regular vapes have a different chemistry. You hope that Juul gets sued out of existence and that the FDA rouses itself to action.

Re: The Walter White of Wichita (2016)

#42

Post by umvi »

krylon wrote: post #35
umvi wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is legalization better than decriminalization? If legal drugs are anything like Juuls, widespread availability and removal of social stigma will just cause use to explode and you have 10x as many addicts as you did before.

AFAIK, countries that have tried loosening the laws on drugs have made good experiences. You would save a lot of money on law enforcement, plus you could tax drugs the way alcohol and tobacco are taxed now. With all that money, you could offer some reasonable therapy facilities. Also, I don't think the stigma would just disappear for stuff like heroin. Heroin is terribly addictive, and staying away from it remains a…

> Also, I don't think the stigma would just disappear for stuff like heroin.

Hopefully there's still strong sigma for life destroying drugs like heroin, meth, etc. But as for the others it's already disappearing for marijuana, and I could easily see it disappearing for LSD, mushrooms, cocaine, etc.

Re: The Walter White of Wichita (2016)

#43

Post by HarryHirsch »

cf141q5325 wrote: post #29
matwood wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, once someone is on the wrong side of the law it becomes easier to rationalize (or safer as there is no one they can turn to) breaking other laws. Human trafficking and guns use the same routes established and initially funded by the drug trade. EDIT: This also occurs at the street level. I've read stories of people not wanting to talk to the police about a murder because they are afraid the police will find som…

>This also occurs at the street level. I've read stories of people not wanting to talk to the police about a murder because they are afraid the police will find some weed and arrest them instead. Sadly a common example is the question whether to call 911 in case of domestic violence for the same reason.

They also love to shoot the family dog. And they get to play with sexy SWAT gear after just one week of training, that's why SWATtings are so deadly. US police have a serious discipline problem, foreigners regularly comment on that.

It's unfortunate that average street gangsters are even less disciplined than the cops. You'd love to see a firefight between a properly trained squad and police. The cops will run even faster than that coward sheriff when the very disturbed fellow shot up Parkland High School.

Re: The Walter White of Wichita (2016)

#44

Post by thecopy »

austincheney wrote: post #38
Nursie wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you said that legalisation hasn't tackled addiction. So far I'm not aware of anywhere that the majorly addictive drugs (heroin, cocaine) have been legalised. Portugal has made inroads into its addiction problem with its decriminalisation program.

> But you said that legalisation hasn't tackled addiction. It has not. Much of the opioid problem in the US is due to legally available drugs. Criminalizing those drugs would probably make it worse.

I think i've read somewhere that Portugal's decriminalization of all drugs has had positive effects.

Re: The Walter White of Wichita (2016)

#45

Post by krylon »

umvi wrote: post #42
krylon wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK, countries that have tried loosening the laws on drugs have made good experiences. You would save a lot of money on law enforcement, plus you could tax drugs the way alcohol and tobacco are taxed now. With all that money, you could offer some reasonable therapy facilities. Also, I don't think the stigma would just disappear for stuff like heroin. Heroin is terribly addictive, and staying away from it remains a…

> Also, I don't think the stigma would just disappear for stuff like heroin. Hopefully there's still strong sigma for life destroying drugs like heroin, meth, etc. But as for the others it's already disappearing for marijuana, and I could easily see it disappearing for LSD, mushrooms, cocaine, etc.

Based on my personal experiences, cannabis, LSD, and mushrooms are far less destructive than alcohol, which is perfectly legal in many countries.

Of course, one can easily destroy one's life with those "soft" drugs. Many people have. But simply making those illegal obviously has not helped much, either.

Re: The Walter White of Wichita (2016)

#46

Post by austincheney »

thecopy wrote: post #44
austincheney wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But you said that legalisation hasn't tackled addiction. It has not. Much of the opioid problem in the US is due to legally available drugs. Criminalizing those drugs would probably make it worse.

I think i've read somewhere that Portugal's decriminalization of all drugs has had positive effects.

I suspect legalization would have positive effects in the US as well, but I do not suspect it will slow consumption. This is evidenced by juvenile vaping rates. The trends indicate that vaping is on schedule to far exceed historic levels of tobacco consumption by minors. Vaping is generally healthier than tobacco having little or no toxins, but the nicotine content is variable and can occur in far greater concentrations than in tobacco products resulting in greater addiction rates than tobacco. Whether or not nicotine were criminalized demand and consumption would continue to grow. The problem is not legality or even availability. The problem is demand. Children want to smoke nicotine products that taste like candy. The messaging is that tobacco is bad, but vaping is... (not communicated).

I suspect the differences in cultural attitudes between Portugal and the US are a large factor for the differences in evidence of success.

Re: The Walter White of Wichita (2016)

#47

Post by llampx »

quetzthecoatl wrote: post #27
austincheney wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it did work for Portugal. Portugal does not have the pharmaceutical industry that the US does. Due to criminalization of certain drugs and the extreme enforcement thereof demand for legally available drugs has never been higher in the US. The pharmaceutical industry is more than happy to fill that gap and meet the economic demand. By ignoring the data and eliminating access to controlled substances demand has no…

The argument is that people are going for legal more potent, more dangerous drugs in US because much harmless marijuana is illegal (Just as when alcohol was prohibited people switched from wine and beer to moonshine). This is true everywhere including US. Not just Portugal. So when relatively harmless recreational drugs are decriminalized, people won't go for fentanyl or oxy. Then of course we have the moral argument…

> The argument is that people are going for legal more potent, more dangerous drugs in US because much harmless marijuana is illegal

I'd argue that there is demand for mind-altering substances in the US because of societal reasons. I count marijuana in there because I don't think any other country in the world has made a bigger deal of it than the US. It is a part of pop culture in a way that doesn't happen anywhere else in the world to my knowledge.

No judgment implied on people who use marijuana, of course.

Re: The Walter White of Wichita (2016)

#48

Post by ryanmercer »

stmfreak wrote: post #3
pietroglyph wrote: post #2

> Then came the 1970s and the drug war. “Oh my goodness, now I have a business,” he thought. This guy is pretty interesting (and it's disappointing that he didn't do something more constructive with his skills), but this quote stood out the most to me. If you start limiting supply but not curtailing demand (e.g. a drug war), it makes it a lot more profitable to sell. And all that money makes it a lot easier for the s…

With legalization, the drugs would be cleaner and dosing more predictable. We could then focus on helping addicts recover instead of worrying about the legal trouble and violence they might bring to our homes if we try to help them.

>With legalization, the drugs would be cleaner and dosing more predictable.

This is a huge problem. People have sold stuff that they claim to be LSD, MDMA etc while using other compounds that can be damaging to outright fatal.

---

Then take things like anabolic steroids, especially injectables. If someone wants to use steroids, that should be their business as it doesn't hurt anyone other than potentially themselves HOWEVER purity. When you're buying stuff in a gym from a random guy or ordering from a Eastern European website or the darknet you only have the reputation of the seller to go by and you're injecting something of unknown purity into muscle which can (and occasionally does) result in abscesses/infection which can do considerable damage to your body. The infections are likely often from poorly manufactured 'gear' and not from operator error.

Why not allow people that want to use steroids, for their own athletic performance, go to a qualified medical professional to not only have the drugs prescribed but to have their blood work monitored so that on cycle, and post cycle, therapy can be handled optimally for health. People will use the compounds, so why not allow them to do so as safely (and legally) as possible? I know of at least two of my friends that have served time, one bought steroids in his youth and has lived with the stigma of being a felon for decades now, the other acted as an one of the individuals getting the money from a PO box a decade or so ago and then forwarding the payment on to the actual seller to add a layer of protection for the seller and again in his early 20's landed a felony conviction and did time. Now he's in prison again, after getting the first felony expunged, for selling ancillaries and peptides (peptides aren't even explicitly illegal, they're simply not approved for administration to humans by unqualified medical professionals!).

Re: The Walter White of Wichita (2016)

#49

Post by ryanmercer »

time-domain0 wrote: post #11
austincheney wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So far legalization has not proven to solve the problems of demand or addiction. In the past several years legally available drugs have been the most abused and resulted in significant problems. I am not claiming this as a justification for increased enforcement either. If you aren't solving for demand you either aren't taking the problem seriously or you have anterior motives to ending drug abuse.

You're mistaken. Prohibition has always failed. 18th/21st amendments and Portugal decriminalization. It's not to say hard drugs are great, but criminalizing them creates more violence and crime in order to access them. Legalization solves several bigger problems: - MIC/PIC over-criminalization for profit - barriers to treatment - higher prices plus criminal enterprises lead to violent crime, i.e., Mexico right now, a…

>but criminalizing them creates more violence and crime in order to access them.

And fills prisons, which cost tax-payers a LOT of money, with people that often did nothing to actually harm anyone (I'm specifically speaking of psychadelics, marijuana and steroid convictions).

Re: The Walter White of Wichita (2016)

#50

Post by admiralEyebrows »

krylon wrote: post #45
umvi wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, I don't think the stigma would just disappear for stuff like heroin. Hopefully there's still strong sigma for life destroying drugs like heroin, meth, etc. But as for the others it's already disappearing for marijuana, and I could easily see it disappearing for LSD, mushrooms, cocaine, etc.

Based on my personal experiences, cannabis, LSD, and mushrooms are far less destructive than alcohol, which is perfectly legal in many countries. Of course, one can easily destroy one's life with those "soft" drugs. Many people have. But simply making those illegal obviously has not helped much, either.

I have a hard time putting psychedelics in the same category as cannabis. And saying they are far less destructive than alcohol might serve the purpose of decriminalization/legalization (because you are right: they are safer), but it doesn't serve the purpose of whoever winds up taking them.

You can have a couple of beers for the first time, and that will give you an idea of what alcohol feels like. You can microdose, and that will give you an idea of what psychedelics are like. But as you scale the amount you take of each, each drink of alcohol will feel like another layer of alcohol, and each increase in dosage of psychedelics is going to feel significantly different than the last. Setting also has more impact on psychedelics than it does on alcohol. Six beers at an office party is going to feel the same as six beers at home. A full dose of psychedelics at an office party is not going to feel the same as a full dose at home.

If legalization were to happen, cultural shamanism would need to exist in some form. In South America ayahuasca doesn't drive those who take it to madness because there are experienced people not only guiding you through the process, but also preparing your diet and expectations before hand. In the late 60s if you were seeking out LSD for the first time, you likely already existed on the side of the cultural fence that advocated for open mindedness and acceptance, and some of your peers would probably already have tried it and would be able to guide you. Illegality today almost forces that same network to exist, as in you need to know people who have done it in order to find it in the first place.

The idea of Joe employee of the month hearing about legalized mushrooms in the news and how they're safer than alcohol, going to a dispensary and buying some with his hard earned USD and then going home to have his ego ripped out of him doesn't sit well with me.

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